


Sharp

by Coldest_Fire



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Crystal Heart Soulmates, Eventual Happy Ending, Fantasy Violence (shattering crystal hearts), Hurt/Comfort, I doubt that'll happen onscreen in the fic, I'll try to break down how it works as the fic progresses, M/M, New type of soulmate au my gf invented, Religious Conversion therapy, Sorry McKinley one of these days I'll start hurting one of the others instead, Soulmate slow burn hurt/comfort., but if you guys want more info just message me, may gain more warinings as it progresses, one mess of tropes right there, this follows canon and we all know what happens to Kevin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 08:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15703377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coldest_Fire/pseuds/Coldest_Fire
Summary: (Full title: Too sharp to put back together)In a universe where, the first time you fall in love, a crystalline heart magically slides out of you, no greater pain exists than being shattered, but he's lived with it for years. He's forgotten what it's like to be able to breathe without his breath hitching from the pain in his chest. Nine years after his heart was shattered, Mckinley thinks he's doomed to a life like this, just as long as he can keep turning it off, and his heart doesn't try to fall for anyone else, and then, on his mission, he meets Kevin Price.





	Sharp

**Author's Note:**

> So, this has been on my hard drive for a long time, and my poor Mckinley can't seem to catch a break. Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon, and please feel free to review/message of you want to talk about this particular AU.

_and oh, the little pieces falling shatter, shards of me too sharp to put back together..._

He could still remember the day his heart fell out through his ribs and into his sweaty fist, remember the way it felt, so warm, but also so vulnerable, hidden by a hand and fold of t-shirt. he bit his lip, and then looked up from the ball of shirt containing his secrets to his friend, Steve Blade, whose haunting dark eyes flickered with hidden mirth as he talked. There was something to the way he spoke, like there were double meanings hidden in it, like Connor Mckinley could spend a lifetime relaying his words, hearing them in different places, surrounded by his words. Steve thought his freckles were cute, and the space his heart had been gave a throb. 

But he didn’t tell him about the heart he had in his hand. He let him finish the story about the time his grandmother had thought his sister was _queer_ because her boyfriend had long hair, and how his parents still didn’t approve of him, but they pretended to, because at least she was with a boy. And that was where Steve smiled, stars through the night sky in his eyes. “but…but what they don’t know is that Elizabeth’s boyfriend is a girl…or, she told me she is, she’d just a girl Heavenly Father got confused about. Promise you won’t tell?”

And Connor’s mouth went dry. He knew heavenly Father didn’t like secrets, unless you were Joseph Smith, and you were hiding the tablets, in which case it was fine. But secrets like these, secrets about bodies, and about people being queer. Those were the kind of secrets people ent to Hell for. But not Elizabeth. He was sure she and her…partner were fine. Maybe if Heavenly Father could mix up Elizabeth’s girlfriend’s body, he could also mix up Connor’s heart, make it pop out as it had, for another boy, burn in his hand with childlike desire, not adult lust, but a gentle love. He wanted to make Steve happy. 

And yeah, okay, maybe when they were older, he thought…other things too. On a deserted island…

But all too soon, lunch ended, and Steve shuffled into the opposite fifth grade class, leaving Connor in the hallway, starting ahead of himself, at the door, his heart in his hands, and the slipping into his pocket, because he knew hearts were fragile, knew he didn’t want to take any risks with it. Oh, if only he knew. 

If only he knew the way he’d show his parents a miracle, and storm clouds would roll through his father’s eyes, as he used words Connor had only heard the older kids at the high school across the street saying. If only he knew that his mother would cry, thunder and rain, but love isn’t supposed to be like lightning, it’s not supposed to be a storm. Connor was just a boy who loved a boy, and he knew it down in his crystal heart. He knew that he loved him, knew that love could be beautiful, could be everything. He bit his lip to keep from begging them to understand, his voice would be lost to the thunder, washed away by the rain. A clear, beautiful heart the size of the hailstones that had wrecked the neighbour’s car a couple months ago, like a golfball lay in his hand, the cause of all of it. 

But hearts weren’t supposed to be hailstones, they weren’t cold, and destructive and disastrous, they were supposed to be warm and good. Of they were warm and good then why the storm? Why was this the catalyst? 

He’d never see an answer. His father continued to yell, and his mother to cry. He stood in a house where storms existed on the inside, even as the sun beat down on the roof from the outside, never reaching in. He had to get out, his heart was getting cold, and it felt like swallowing mouthfuls of ice, the cold discomfort that radiated through his body. He had to get into the sun, into the warmth. This room was dropping degrees, shedding them with his mother’s tears, and the walls were starting to close in around him, close in on his lungs and enfold him. He couldn’t breathe in this room, couldn’t live like this, not with his heart in his hands. 

He tried to leave, to run just out the door, into the sun, and there were hands on his shoulders. Suddenly, the storm had ended, his father’s voice deceptively soft, his mother keeping the sniffling down a minimum. And his father told him that he could never tell anyone that this had happened, and this was a special test Heavenly Father had sent the whole family, but they were going to take him to a special doctor and get his heart fixed. 

Poor, sweet, innocent kid, he’d never questioned the legitimacy of any doctor who operated out of a church basement. They’d gotten there, and there was a woman, in a white pantsuit, with shoulder length blonde hair, and he thought maybe this meant she could be the sun, maybe she’d warm his defective heart. Instead, she called his father by his first name, and instructed him too hold Connor, taking the heart to an enclosed box on her desk, reaching her hands into gloves that fed into the box. Maybe she was going o use a medicine, only for hearts, and then he’d get to keep it in a pretty box in his room, and he could show Steve Blade tomorrow after school. 

She shook her head form the box in response to something his mother asked her, “No, that would never work. Just look at the shape, it’s much too effeminate. Therapy on its own can’t reshape a heart.” 

Then pain. Pain so bad he screamed and thrashed, and vomited down his school uniform. Pain like millions of burning knives pressing through his skin, ripping his to shreds, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. Physically, his body was screaming, but from the inside he was shattering. It was like something exploded inside his sternum, and bits were lodged in his lunch and heart and he couldn’t breathe, but was somehow screaming. Pain so severe he lost consciousness, and when he awoke, his skin was tender still but didn’t hurt except from the contact. His chest, however, felt like every one of his ribs had crashed on imaginary fault lines, like he was hit by Heavenly Father himself, something more powerful than a bus, or a plane that would simply eviscerate him. He’d sobbed as he watched crystal starts tumble from the box into something pink, as it was draped around his neck.

The warmth was gone. The sun was gone, when he left the church, but Connor McKinley was never to feel it again. They’d put the storm inside of his chest where a heart was to be.


End file.
